Links to details available at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas<
/div>
NORTHGLENN - A truck carrying roofing asphalt rolled,
closing a part of southbound Interstate 25 for over four hours on
Sunday.
North Metro Fire says the truck was carrying 500
gallons of the molten asphalt when it rolled near the 104th Avenue exit
on southbound I-25 around noon. Hazmat was called to the scene to clean
up the 200 gallons of asphalt that was spilled when the truck
rolled.
The highway was closed at 120th Avenue and reopened a
little after 4 p.m.
No other vehicle was involved according to
authorities. One adult male was transported to Denver Health Medical
Center with minor injuries.
No official statement has been issued as to what
caused the rollover to happen.
-----------------------
The Battalion Chief for the Port Arthur Police
Department said a worker inside a chemical plant received 2nd degree
burns earlier today.
Firefighters responded to KM Tex around 10:30 this
morning.
The Battalion Chief said the worker was burned
when a fire flashed over at a pump transfer station.
The
facility is located on 2400 block of South Gulfway drive on the
Intercoastal Waterway.
Investigators say the fire started in a pump house in
an area where products are loaded and off loaded. Investigators say the
worker received 2nd degree burns but refused medical
treatment.
-----------------------
Bright posters and a 200-page manual will guide the
students and teachers of Delhi University (DU) on what precautions to
take while conducting experiments in its chemistry laboratories.
Following the aftermath of the Cobalt 60 mishap, as a first step towards
checking such instances in future, the
Delhi
University has decided to come up with informative posters and a
manual.
In February this year, DU=92s
Chemistry department had sold a =93Gamma Irradiator=94, which contained
Cobalt 60, as scrap. Later, due to a leak of Cobalt 60 =97 a radioactive
substance =97 from the instrument, one person died and three others fell
ill in Mayapuri.
=93The Cobalt 60 incident was an eye-opener. On
reviewing existing safety measures for students in laboratories, we
found that basic guidelines on how to handle chemicals were missing.
That=92s why the manual and the posters,=94 said AK Bakshi, director of
Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILLL) and Head of the Department of
Chemistry.
The manual and the posters, which have been prepared
by the ILLL, are in the final stages. A meeting of chemistry teachers
from the department and various colleges will be held on August
3.
=93The teachers will be shown the posters and manuals
for suggestions to improvise on them further,=94 said
Bakshi.
While one of the posters lists the do=92s and
don=92ts while conducting experiments, the other lists chemicals and
their symbols, while the third has a list of first-aid measures to
follow in case of a laboratory accident.
The
manual contains names of 195 chemicals, arranged alphabetically, which
are commonly used, their properties, how to handle and store them and
how they look when in a bottle and outside it.
-----------------------
Texas Tech is staging a drastic overhaul of its
research safety policies after a laboratory explosion in January sent a
doctoral candidate to a hospital with severe burns to his hands and
face.
The 29-year-old student, Preston Brown, has since
returned to his studies, but federal and university officials have
launched probes to vet the school=92s safety policies and recommend ways
to bring them up to speed with its research engine.
Tech is
still awaiting the findings of a U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB)
investigation, but an internal task force released a report last week
urging a university-wide push to improve research
safety.
University officials have also completed a separate
in-house investigation specifically into Brown=92s
accident.
-----------------------
DOZENS of residents in a West Lothian village were
evacuated from their homes at the weekend due to a chemical
fire.
Firefighters attending the
blaze, which began inside a garage in Bellsmill Terrace, Winchburgh, on
Saturday night, discovered explosive acetylene gas cylinders in the
building.
They decided that the
canisters posed a risk to the public and asked local people to leave
their homes and go to the village=92s community centre.
And now fire crews have thanked the villagers for
their co-operation.
-----------------------
RAMAH, LA
(WAFB) - Louisiana State Police reopened all lanes of Interstate 10
early Friday morning after an overturned 18-wheeler caused a shutdown
for several hours.
The tractor trailer overturned Thursday afternoon on
I-10 near Grosse Tete, causing it to leak sodium hydroxide,
also known as lye.
According to troopers, all lanes on I-10 west at the
Lobdell/LA 415 exit and on I-10 east at the Ramah exit were officially
opened at 3:50 a.m.
A hazmat crew worked to contain the sodium hydroxide,
which according to the CDC, can cause eye and skin
irritation.
-----------------------
JONESBORO, AR (KAIT) - Highway lanes are reopening and
safety crews are leaving after the stir of an accident on E Nettleton
settles.
According to reports, a Dodge truck was traveling on
Highway 18 when it struck a farm truck trailer in the rear. The
collision broke a container holding mixed chemicals.
Before
fire and hazmat crews arrived, the farmer owning the land was able to
dam a ditch the chemicals ran into with a backhoe before the chemicals
were able spread any further.
There are no injuries reported.
-----------------------
China sent hundreds of officials to assist people hurt
in a gas-pipeline blast in the city of Nanjing and to retrieve 3,000
barrels of hazardous chemicals that washed into a river in Jilin as
authorities grappled with the latest in a string of industrial
accidents.
The explosion at an abandoned factory in the eastern
city of Nanjing killed at least 12 people and left another 15 seriously
injured, state broadcaster China Central Television reported late
yesterday. Workers demolishing buildings at the Nanjing No. 4 Plastics
Factory damaged a propylene pipeline, causing the blast, the official
Xinhua News Agency reported.
=93It felt like an earthquake,=94 said Chen Ming, a
resident who lives less than 500 meters from the site of the explosion.
=93Things fell from the shelves and hit me. I ran out of my house and
found everyone was standing outside.=94
The
accidents in Nanjing and Jilin yesterday followed an acid leak at Zijin
Mining Group Co.=92s copper and gold mines in the eastern province of
Fujian and an oil spill in northeastern China that shut beaches and a
port this month. China=92s work safety administration last week ordered
intensified measures at factories, mines and construction sites to
prevent accidents.
-----------------------
West
Ashley, SC - A hazardous chemical leak shuts down a West Ashley Kmart
for most of the day Thursday.
=93My wife and I, we were in the Kmart store earlier
this morning. Everything was clear when we went in. We
stayed in for about 5 minutes and then all of the sudden there was a
mist of white little smoke,=94 said customer Bobby Ray
Cherry.
That mist turned out to be a chemical used in the air
conditioning unit called R-22.
4 Interact:
Click
Here to Comment on this Story
Cherry
says he saw it coming from vents in the ceiling.
=93I
asked my wife, do you smell any smoke? I said where is that mist
coming from? We need to evacuate, because we don=92t know what
that is, so we just left the store,=94 said Cherry.
Kmart and
the adjacent Sears were both evacuated.
-----------------------
University of Florida police made an unusual discovery
Tuesday at a campus sorority: a cancer-causing compound left in a
Dumpster.
A
handyman at the Alpha Delta Phi sorority initially reported finding a
glass bottle with a hazardous materials warning on it. Police later
discovered the bottle contained cadmium chloride.
The
substance contains cadmium, which is a cancer hazard, and its dust can
cause lung and kidney disease, according to its warning
label.
Police also made another discovery in the garbage bag
containing the bottle: several financial statements belonging to James
Weidner, according to a police report.
Weidner,
81, is a retired agronomy professor. He told police he had accumulated
lots of chemicals over the years and that his wife threw away the bottle
for him, according to the report.
His wife, Nina, works as a
sorority chef and threw away the substance thinking it was non-toxic,
she said Thursday when reached by phone.
Police
decided against pursuing the matter because there was no criminal
intent, police spokesman Capt. Jeff Holcomb said. The matter was
referred to UF's environmental health and safety department for possible
action by environmental regulators, he said.
>The woman who threw it out thought it was
non-toxic.
-----------------------
The day Sheharbano =93Sheri=94 Sangji, a 23-year-old
technician at the University of California, Los Angeles, undertook what
would be her last task, she wore a sweatshirt and no lab coat. That late
December afternoon in 2008, she started working with a liquid called
t-butyl lithium. The chemical requires careful handling, because as a
pyrophoric, it catches fire when exposed to air. But equipment
malfunctioned, and the fluid spilled, setting the synthetic fibers of
her clothing ablaze. Two postdocs ran to help douse the fire engulfing
Sangji, but they failed to get her to the nearby shower. Emergency
personnel raced to the scene, but they arrived too late. She spent 18
days in a hospital burn unit before she died.
Sangji=92s
catastrophe highlights widely unsuspected risks in many schools. =93Most
academic laboratories are unsafe venues for work or study,=94 wrote
safety expert Neal Langerman in the May/June 2009 Journal of Chemical
Health and Safety. He termed the fatality =93totally and unquestionably
pre vent=ADable.=94 Both Patrick Harran, a chemist and director of the
U.C.L.A. lab where Sangji worked, and Chancellor Gene Block
independently described Sangji=92s case as a =93tragic accident.=94 =93As
we continue to mourn Sheri=92s death and grieve for her family, we are
determined to rededicate ourselves to ensuring the safety of each and
every member of our entire Bruin family,=94 Block said in a statement.
U.C.L.A. and other universities instituted reforms and reportedly
reviewed their safety procedures.
To the California Division
of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), however, the incident was
not a mere misfortune. Cal/OSHA uncovered life-threatening safety
violations, including lack of proper training and protective clothing.
It also found that U.C.L.A. failed to make a required report of a
similar, but nonfatal incident with another student more than a year
before Sangji=92s. Had reforms happened after that event, Sangji=92s
fate might have been different. Cal/OSHA imposed nearly $32,000 in fines
(uncontested by U.C.L.A.) in her death.
-----------------------
